Editorial: Burris can't lose his 'senator' title soon enough

Friday

So here's the question: Was Illinois' embarrassment of a U.S. senator, Roland Burris - an embarrassment to all but himself, anyway - always like this, and we just didn't notice?

So here's the question: Was Illinois' embarrassment of a U.S. senator, Roland Burris - an embarrassment to all but himself, anyway - always like this, and we just didn't notice?

Was he always this cagey, evasive, self-serving, self-excusing, self-worshipping, perhaps just downright dishonest? Or did all those years out of office and out of the headlines and his enormous throbbing ego finally get the best of him so that in one last-ditch, desperate attempt to become somebody again, he decided to throw integrity to the winds and surrender his soul to get one last title on his tombstone?

Psychologists we're not, so we're left to scratch our heads over Burris' bizarre behavior. Evidently we did not know this man when he was Illinois' comptroller and attorney general. And clearly he is Rod's Revenge, the disgraced former governor's final suckerpunch at the citizens who were foolish enough to elect him not once, but twice.

Perhaps Illinois deserves this.

The latest is the judge-ordered public release of the FBI audiotape, covertly recorded last Nov. 13, that has Burris negotiating over the phone with the governor's brother Rob for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. One of the criminal allegations against Rod Blagojevich is that he tried to sell the seat to the highest bidder, and Burris seems fully cognizant on tape that he is pushing the envelope regarding the appearance of "if I do get appointed that means I bought it."

Indeed, you can hear Burris struggling to find a loophole that will allow him to get what he wants - a spot in the Senate - without seeming to cave to the demands the governor's brother is making. The latter makes it clear that he's "not a bullshitter" and "we're trying to get as much as we can in his (Rod's) war chest."

"I'm very much interested in ... trying to replace Obama, OK," Burris tells the since-indicted brother. He could "put on a fundraiser," but "it has so many negative connotations" and "then Rod and I both gonna catch hell." Indeed, "you know how the press treats it." It's "a dilemma," Burris says. "I know I could give him a check." Or he and his partner could "try to do something at the law firm," in his partner's name. Or better yet, "maybe I can join in on one of those events too," referencing fundraisers hosted by other Blagojevich benefactors. Whatever, "I will personally do something, OK."

But make no mistake: "God knows, number one ... I wanna help Rod. Number two, I also wanna, you know, hope I get a consideration to get that appointment."

Damning as the transcript of his conversation is -- the ears are a little more forgiving in the audio version -- what's up in Burris' world is down in everybody else's, as he now claims it exonerates him. Bottom line, "I didn't give him any money and I didn't raise any money," Burris says. Perhaps so, but it does raise the specter of whether Burris perjured himself in testimony before the impeachment committee of the Illinois House earlier this year. Burris changes his stories like most folks change their socks. It convicts him, if not in a court of law then certainly in the court of public opinion.

No wonder he just wants all this to go away. "There was no pay to play in this or any intention of pay to play," Burris told a Chicago radio host this week. "And therefore, that should be the end of the story."

Unfortunately for him, it's just the beginning of the story. Indeed, if a veteran politician like Burris knew how poorly this would be perceived, then why didn't he flatly refuse to go along with it? He says now he was just trying to "placate" the governor's camp. But as an attorney and officer of the court, doesn't he have a duty to report wrongdoing when he believes he's witnessed it? Did he go to the feds?

The best thing you can say about Burris here is that his ambition got in the way of his sense, which apparently he has completely run out of.

The more Burris talks, the deeper the hole he digs. He now acknowledges, for instance, that his sworn testimony in Springfield was incomplete because the "one thing you don't do is to ... volunteer information that wasn't asked. ... There was no obligation there." Say what? "No obligation" for someone who wants to represent Illinois' interests in the U.S. Senate to come clean under oath? Does he know what the meaning of the word "is" is?

Meanwhile, he insists with a straight face that "I'm not splitting hairs, I'm not walking a crooked line. ... I'm as straightforward and honest as I can be." If this is the best he can do, it's not good enough.

This newspaper called for Burris' resignation in February, and we are more convinced than ever that he would have done the citizens of Illinois and himself a favor if he had taken that advice.

He has become a caricature of himself. His time in the U.S. Senate cannot end soon enough. In the interim, the Senate Ethics Committee should slap Burris hard. He is a walking-and-talking reminder of why the Land of Lincoln so desperately needs ethics reform. Burris should spare himself and Illinois residents further humiliation by not seeking this seat next year.

Peoria Journal Star

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